Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1887-08-04
THE FUEL QUESTION.

strOy they first make mad. According
| to the accounts that reach us from day
| to day what is known as the coal syndi-
cate has for some time past been in eX-
actly the mad condition that precedes
certain destruction. One statement that
one of the coal road corporations is and
has been for some time carrying coal
lands heretofore purchased, to the value
of 800, 600, 600, and, as the statement
goes, the company is heavily in debt on
account of this coal land purchase, and
it is believed to be through the influence
of this heavily indebted company that
the coal syndicate is just now resorting
to the peculiarly oppressive course it
has been pursuing of late. 1t is stated
that the syndicate has of late given out
that it will enforce its highest retail
prices on wholesale as well as on retail
lots, and that neither heavy manufac-
turers nor government institutions gen
eral or local, need expect any abatement
because they are heavy consumers We
see it stated that in one of the L. S. gov
eminent buildings, in one of the large
cities, the eXtravagant price asked for
hard coal determined the government
agents to use bituminous coal instead of
the hard, as upon close investigation it
was found that saving of SIC, 900 could
ho do hn W. xr1
ing So This is only one straw; de-
termined feeling of opposition to this
heartless ring is being worked up all
over the country. Efforts are being
made in all directions. New kinds Of
fuel which shall take the place of anthra
cite coal and which shall answer every
practical purpose which the hard coal
does. Natural gas is coming rapidly to
the front as one of the substitutes.
Natural gas can be furnished under ia
vOrable circumstances at about one-half
the price that coal costs. 1t has already
taken the place of the common soft coal
at Pittsburg, Pa, to very large extent,
and in Northern Ohio, at one of the
towns where the article abounds, it is re-
ported that there is not ton of coal
used in a year at the present time. New
gas finds are being made here and there
in different portions of the country, and
boring for gas has now come to be a reg
ular BUSINESS in all portions of the
country The question has been raised
as to how the flow of natural gas at any
given point may be expected to hold out
after it may have been developed and
put in regular use in any given locality.
At Charleston, W. Va, this kind of gas
has been in use for the past fifty years,
and now shows no perceptible decrease
in its volume. The writer saw the gas
at this point in practical use shortly after
it was first discovered. The probability
is that down in the Trenton rock nature
great Laboratory is constantly generating
this gas SO as to keep it in endless sup
ply.
use in many ways in which coal has
been commonly used. 1t has
been found that crude petroleum oil can |
be used for making steam under fair con-
ditions at about half the cost of common, |
fair bituminous coal, and experiments |
are constantly being made by railroad |
and steamboat men with view to per
fecting system by which the crude oil |
can be regularly used.
Crude petroleum oil is now used cxclu-
sively on all the steamboats, plying the |
waters of the Caspian Sea and the Volga |
river, which empties into it; also on all |
the locomotives used on the Russian rail |
road in all that region, the oil thus used |
being obtained from the great Baku oil |
field in Russia, near the Caspian Sea. |
1t has, therefore, been demonstrated to |
the fullest extent that both natural gas |
and crude petroleum oil can be used to |
the best kind of advantage for general
ing steam, and it follows as matter of
course that these articles can be used in
private dwellings in the place of coal,
and they will be widely SO used in the
near future. 1t is now given out that |
not more than one-fOurth of the heat |
that coal is capable of producing is OBJ
tanned by the common methods of burn
ing coal, and it is claimed that parties
are now moving in the direction of turn
ing coal into gas in such manner as tot
furnish all the heat it contains to the
consumer. If system can be brought
into use for taking all the gas from
coal in such manner as to
furnish it to consumers free from smoke
,een limited at, it will be safe to calcu
ate that the days of the anthracite coal
combine will be brought to an inglorious
md. We give it as our opinion that in
he near future the syndicate will be
glad to sell hard coal at a good deal less
han the present manipulated eXtortion
tie prices. The following from the
Omaha Bee sizes up the coal ring in fit
ing terms:
THE anthracite coal pool proposes to
'epeat it operations of last year in limit
ng the production and advancing the
price, and yet Philadelphia paper says
here are two men to dig coal in the
mining regions where one can find en-
,loyment, and the wages of mining have